Where Islam spreads, freedom dies

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who has single-handedly done more to rescue the posthumous reputation of Idi Amin than anyone would have believed possible at the time he was alive, thinks she knows what puts the Great into Great Britain: her. And people like her. She means brown people.

Reacting to the government's recent launch of a PR campaign for Britain to polish our riot-tarnished image, she hisses with indignation:

An astoundingly backward selection of images have been picked to represent it. Scan this panorama and there are no women, though one poster does feature a killingly high stiletto shoe. Royalty is represented by the obese wife killer Henry VIII. Adele is mentioned in the small print. Misogynist visitors hoping to escape femaleness will surely get a shock when they land.

Sure. And now that the preamble's out of the way, let's get to what you really wanted to say.

Just as scandalous is the total absence of the racial and cultural mix that defines London, our extraordinary metropolis. I lie. The prosthetic arm, representing innovation, is shiny black, a careless slip perhaps. We would never have won the Olympics with such a mendacious, whitewashed sales pitch. That bid celebrated our energetic and multifarious land. Should our athletes and players of colour choose to boycott the British team, the number of British medals wouldn't fill a Smythson's business card wallet designed by the fragrant Samantha Cameron. Billionaire Asian businessmen, black newsreaders, Sayeeda Warsi, the female Muslim Tory Cabinet member, actors like Adrian Lester, singers like Leona Lewis – none of them are good enough to be Great Britain's representatives.

Sayeeda Warsi, some Olympic medals and a few singers. Was it worth giving Britain up for that? YAB seems confident we'd all agree that it was.

Our racially and culturally varied population is routinely decried by millions of Britons and some powerful and influential leaders. But imagine turning the clock back to the 1950s, to the safe and dull place they say it was then. How many indigenous Britons would, in all honesty, return to those times?

How many indeed, Yasmin? That is a very interesting question which will perhaps one day be approximated in a referendum. Then we'll have our answer. And not just in Britain but all across Europe, I wonder how many Europeans would opt to restore the demographic make-up of their countries to its 1950s condition if that choice was available to them at the press of a magic button.

And note the description of a Europe that was actually European as "dull". She attributes this to others; but that of course is what she really thinks herself. Europe had a rich, colourful history for centuries before you non-Europeans arrived, Yasmin. Many of us would love to go back to that era of 'dullness', free of religious terrorism, free of the institutionalised guilt of political correctness, free of equality audits, communitarian politics and the many exotic new crimes that you invaders brought with you.

In spite of racism, this nation has always been open to change, that is the secret of its success.